Well this is a fine how-do-ye-do! Barack Hussein Obama loves 13-year-old juvenile offenders in Mississippi private prisons more than he loves the upstanding citizens who beat and rape them! A “scathing decision” from a federal judge, following a report by the Department of Justice, said the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility allowed “a cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts and conditions to germinate, the sum of which places the offenders at substantial ongoing risk.” And now GEO, the Boca Raton-based private prison company that ran it, has pulled out of all three of its prisons in Mississippi! What does Barack Obama have against capitalism and the private prison-industrial complex!!?!

Oh, this maybe:

* Prison staff had sex with incarcerated youth, which investigators called “among the worst that we’ve seen in any facility anywhere in the nation.”
* Poorly trained guards brutally beat youth and used excessive pepper spray as a first response.
* The prison showed “deliberate indifference” to prisoners possessing homemade knives, which were used in gang fights and inmate rapes.
* Some guards had gang affiliations — a finding confirmed to NPR last year by former inmate Justin Bowling.

Does the Southern Poverty Law Center perhaps have some thoughts on this?

Sheila Bedi, deputy legal director at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said that her group is considering legal action against the prison.

Regarding Walnut Grove, Bedi said whoever takes over management of the facility, at least the juvenile offenders held there will be safer under the court order.

“Some of the more significant relief includes an agreement to remove all children from that facility, and to put them in a stand-alone unit that will be operated by the Mississippi Department of Corrections and governed by juvenile justice, as opposed to adult correctional standards,” she said.

Pffft. There we go, coddling 13-year-old criminals by not raping them maybe. Has Barack Obama at long last no sense of shame? AND WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN? Oh right. [NPR]

" a finding confirmed to NPR last year by former inmate Justin Bowling"
If he's in solitary confinement, would he be in a league of his own?

freakishlywrong

Mississippi you say?

Generation[redacted]

Your move, Halliburton.

SorosBot

Man, privatizing our prisons has been such a great idea that's just worked wonders for our justice system.

http://simplyleftbehind.blogspot.com/ actor212

The Soup Nazi™ kitchens have been particularly profitable

iburl

and it's great for the free market to have government responsibilities because private corporations are inherently more moral and just than government facilities and our tax monies should always go to the most expensive option with the worst outcomes. Also all that tax money we give them just goes directly into campaign coffers so that we can continue to harden laws and lock more and more people up for longer and longer times, because this is the land of the free.

SorosBot

That explains our health care system, too!

http://simplyleftbehind.blogspot.com/ actor212

Better'n Jesse Davis did

BerkeleyBear

And companies will always be more diligent in monitoring employees because they have a bottom line to consider whereas lazy government employees have no incentive to achieve because of their pay, benefits and socialist unions.

Ack! Can't even write it without cringing.

Tundra Grifter

SorosBot:

Rather like ancient Egypt and the Ottoman Empire, when "tax farmers" were private entities hired to collect public taxes.

Guess that explains why those two empires are still around, eh?

doloras

The Romans, too. Cicero made his name prosecuting a particularly corrupt tax farmer in Asia Minor.

CivicHoliday

This is his Willie Horton moment.

bumfug

"…a cesspool of unconstitutional and inhuman acts and conditions…" Forget the prisons – that's pretty much the whole state of Mississippi.

TxSpinyLizrd

make that the Republican Utopia of Mississippi.

BerkeleyBear

As luck would have it, Mrs. Bear is in Mississippi right now consulting on an aspect of state government. Let's just say the system is a little "different" there – and by different I mean decades behind the times.

Of course, blue states have fucked up services too. Just fucked up in different ways – and anytime a "business first" governor of either party gets involved, the damage lingers for years.

Allmighty_Manos

"And now GEO, the Boca Raton-based private prison company that ran it, has pulled out of all three of its prisons in Mississippi!"

Just what we need, more government regulations strangling free enterprise and job creation.

redarmyzombie

Would the prison in question happen to have any ties to Iranian diplomats?

SorosBot

Or the Catholic Church?

redarmyzombie

I suppose the Boy Scouts qualify for this list as well.

freakishlywrong

It is run by GEO Group of Boca Raton, Fla., the nation's second-largest for-profit prison corporation, which posted a profit of $284 million last year.
The invisible hand. Fail.

BornInATrailer

The free market created jobs for these youths. Invisible hand jobs

BerkeleyBear

Well, when you only go into business to basically usurp government functions but run them less efficiently (except from a profit extracting viewpoint) I don't know how invisible the hand is rather than stabbed to the table to avoid messing with you.

Privatization is a nasty rigged game. And the private prison companies use their money on the finest lobbyists and influence peddlers to keep it that way.

BaldarTFlagass

"Regarding Walnut Grove, Bedi said whoever takes over management of the facility, at least the juvenile offenders held there will be safer under the court order."

Sounds to me like they'd be safer in Abu Ghraib than in their current situation.

http://facethesuncastnoshadow.wordpress.com/ Mumbletypeg

as opposed to adult correctional standards”

…will be safer under the court order

— but, srsly indeed. Fuck this. As if it NEVER occurred to anyone that, whoa, sure!, Eureka, we have kids here, and as such they belong in a juvenile-appropriate facility. Not just thrown to the wolves like so much refuse.

BerkeleyBear

Because of overcrowding and NIMBY attitudes, among other issues, a whole lot of juvies are in what are supposed to be segregated wings of adult facilities nationwide. That's true for prisons, mental health facilities and developmental disability facilities. It is stupid and counterproductive, but the costs of dedicated facilities always draw the ire of budget cutters. Who shockingly are also the assholes who helped create the overcrowding in the first place.

Radiotherapy

This issue is a real Sleeper.

http://wonkette.com/ weejee

saw what you did there

Nopantsmcgee

Clever, you are.

ProgressiveInga

Last night, RMoney said “We will stop the unfairness of urban children being denied access to the good schools of their choice".

Oh, so, he'll just re-privatize juvenile prisons. Got it.

Redgyal

By urban he means blah, right? I wonder if the good wah schools will cotton to mittens giving vouchers out for those people to come to their schools.

I saw a GEO bus transporting prisoners in downtown San Antonio last week. It looked like a really nice bus. I thought maybe they were taking the inmates for an enjoyable day out at Fiesta. But maybe not.

http://simplyleftbehind.blogspot.com/ actor212

Probably taking them down to Juarez to learn them how to sex better

http://simplyleftbehind.blogspot.com/ actor212

Prison staff had sex with incarcerated youth

Were they paid in whore diamonds? Cuz then Romney could just claim they were receiving job training for a future position as Republican spouse.

Rehabilitation!

Douché

"* Prison staff had sex with incarcerated youth, which investigators called “among the worst that we’ve seen in any facility anywhere in the nation.” "

That's pretty bad to be rated among the worst prison sex in the nation. People will NOT be clamoring for a bunk there.

Crank_Tango

oh I thought they meant the YOUTH were the worst, at the sex, presumably.

Douché

I guess it is important to know how to correctly be sodomized whilst in prison.

Callyson

Last week, CEO George Zoley said the company was discontinuing its contract at the East Mississippi Correctional Facility that houses inmates with mental illness because the facility had been "financially underperforming."

Yeah–abusing kids doesn't pay as well as he thought it would. Asshole.

Also, Joe Arpaio on line one…

Texan_Bulldog

What? You mean Barry doesn't want kids who have shitty home lives, are poor and engaged in misdemeanor-level behavior to be raped & have such a horribly traumatic experience in juvie 'centers' that they go on to become hardened don't-want-to-meet-in-the-alley criminals? What a typical bleeding heart liberal.

Schmannnity

Get the government's private correctional officers off the backs of children.

What state has the lowest literacy rate? Answer: Mississippi.
What state has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy? Answer: Mississippi.
What state has the highest level of children living in poverty? Answer: Mississippi.

What state is run by fat white Republicans who think the answer to every problem is tax cuts and giveaways to businesses and cruel, inhuman treatment of everyone not rich enough get the fuck out of that shithole.

http://simplyleftbehind.blogspot.com/ actor212

And now GEO, the Boca Raton-based private prison company that ran it, has pulled out of all three of its prisons in Mississippi!

I see what you do there, Editrix

rickmaci

So busted.

BaldarTFlagass

* Prison staff had sex with incarcerated youth, which investigators called “among the worst that we’ve seen in any facility anywhere in the nation.”

I'm confused. Was it the youth, the staff, or the sex that were the worst they've seen?

Edit—Dang it, Douchay!

gullywompr

Worst. Prison. Sex. Ever.

V572 Fehrnstrom

Okay, government can't do much right, but apparently it can guard prisoners better than the private sector. Who knows, maybe it can even run schools, build highways, operate the courts, and enforce the law. (It's already demonstrated its excellence in bombing Browns.)

And really, Southern Poverty Law Center, such a bunch of whiners, always worrying about RW hate groups and wanting to coddle convicts.. What do gun-nut nut-jobs trying to overthrow the rule of law have to do with southern poverty law?

ChernobylSoup

There goes Obama, making us choose sides again.

Crank_Tango

Most divisive prez, evar.

Man0nTheStreet

Just shameless pandering for votes – damn that Kenyan usurper!

edgydrifter

Mississippi: We're so law-and-order, we make every sentence a death sentence.

mavenmaven

In Mississippi, "personhood" only applies to fetuses.

gullywompr

Why didn't those prisoners hire guards that would treat them well in the first place? Don't they understand how privitization works?

SayItWithWookies

Well, if we can't throw our children to the mercies of the free market, where they'll be tended to like commodities and handled by poorly-trained, low-paid schlubs with no job security or prospects of advancement, then — uh — we'll just give them vouchers for private schools, since they're doing such an excellent job.

niblick77

They were gay raping them, because you know, they were trying to turn them into republicans. (hey, they need the votes, ok?)

OneYieldRegular

The mere fact that there's anyone trying to profit off of prisons should be reason enough to arrange a switch between the occupants of the cells at Walnut Grove and those in the offices of GEO, and let the kids have their turn running things.

freakishlywrong

Sort of like a reverse Lord of the Flies.

LastGasp

Some guards had gang affiliations — a finding confirmed to NPR last year by former inmate Justin Bowling.

Look, everyone just wants to belong, is that so wrong?

Biff

Ah, nostalgia. This made me look up the one I was incarcerated in. Being from an elitist, snobbish county in the Bay Area, of course it even has it's own yelp entry.

BaldarTFlagass

Fortunately, these incarcerated kids are young and resilient and I am sure that they will all bounce back and turn into productive members of society. I mean, that's the intent here, right?

Damn it, Barack! *pounds fist on table* Stop coddling these 'children' and start up the Hunger Games now!

Man0nTheStreet

Doritos® and the US Army Present: The 2014 Hunger Games – LIVE!!

Now, STAND for the Opening Prayer from President Romney…

prommie

Pish posh, this is nothing, you know the old story, who do you get to guard the worst of the worst? People who are even worse. No, the very very best shining example of the virtues of the Republican led movement to privatize prisons is the Pennsylvania case in which the prison company executives were bribing the local judges who heard juvenile cases, paying them to send more kids to jail. Isn't that just the most heart-warming story of Truth, Justice, and the American Way you ever heard? Not at all the sort of story you would hear about some corrupt third-world bannana republic.

http://simplyleftbehind.blogspot.com/ actor212

Why do you hate capitalism????

SorosBot

Well how else are we gonna get our unpaid labor without technically violating the 13trh Amendment?

FNMA

As a native Pennsyltuckian, I object to how you characterized the Pennsylvania situation. It was a win-win. The judges made out. The prison operators made out. The kids? Fuck them. I mean, not literally. We're not Mississippi, for Christ's sake.

So sad. I actually Have coworkers who are angry that inmates get three meals a day. They think that it rewarding them for what they did. I pointed out that they lose their freedom as part of the process but my coworkers for some reason felt that they got the worse deal by having the freedom to go to work everyday to earn money to pay for three meals a day. Christ!

Steverino247

People like Charlie Manson are made in facilities like this. So, treat juvenile prisoners humanely, give them some job skills and hope OR ass rape them, beat them and then bitch about how much it costs to hunt them down and execute them after they get even with society for doing that to them.

Baconzgood

Black Water: Now for kids!

gullywompr

Privitization fail. Ron Paul must be turning over in his grave.

ttommyunger

Sadly, I think he is still taking in air.

pdiddycornchips

Whenever I read anything about the private prison industry, I have to self medicate to tap down the homicidal rage. Is there a less morally indefensible line of business?

Man0nTheStreet

No.

MissTaken

This is bullshit. According to Skinemax nubile incarcerated juvenile girls love it when the guard comes in late at night to show her his nightstick. They LOVE it.

Man0nTheStreet

Those are our Koch Bros. Private Prisons. We incarcerate *only* the best.

Doesn't Obama know that once someone's been convicted of a crime, they're forever a criminal, any mistreatment of them is justified, and they should always be unemployable and forced to live in poverty?

This, of course, applies to common criminals, like burglars or black guys who smoke pot on occasion; public officials who take bribes or corporate executives who steal millions of dollars from customers should always be able to rehabilitate themselves.

Man0nTheStreet

As per the Issa Amendment to the US Penal Code.

Redgyal

Right, because their crimes don't hurt anyone…they're victimless crimes…so why punish them? They are being punched enough with all the bad publicity.

Biff

You know who else was from Mississippi? Chris Etheridge, that's who, and now he's fucking dead.

http://sciencekick.blogspot.com valthemus

Did he die of shame?

(I'm originally from Jackson so I get to make fun of Mississippi all I want. So there.)

Biff

Well, he left when he was 17 and made some awesome music for a very long time…

Tundra Grifter

Is this a bad time to mention that the Arizona anti-immigration law was drafted by a private prison company?

Man0nTheStreet

Are Supreme Court Justices owners of said company, or merely investors?

Weenus299

You know, on Tee Vee at least, Charles Ingalls et al. blew up that Walnut Grove.

chascates

The inmates are mainly young, black males. That itself is almost a death sentence in Mississippi.

teebob2000

Is GEO by any chance short for NAMBLA?

http://hong-kong-actresses.blogspot.com/ donner_froh

Poorly trained guards brutally beat youth and used excessive pepper spray as a first response.

Those recruits from the NYPD really worked out well.

Man0nTheStreet

Someday, maybe, if sanity and justice guide US Government, Private Prisons will be Constitutionally-banned as the anti-democratic abominations they are.

Guppy

This will do wonders for GEO's bid to run Gitmo.

Warpde

I didn't know the Catholic Church was int running Juvi prisons.

Sassomatic

Were any of those kids wearing hoodies? This is crucial to my opinion on this subject.

rickmaci

And what about the state of Mississippi that has been ripped off by GEO? Does Mississippi have a Governor? An Attorney General? Legislative committees to do oversight? Why are we not hearing from the leaders that run the state of Mississippi? Oh yah, they are all asshat RepubliKKKLans and are out collecting campaign funds while having drinks and lunch with the execs of GEO.

CessnaDriver

Drug Blimpblob is applying for a weekend job as a guard in a juvenile prison.

Why go to the DR to butt-motorboat young boys when you can do it in the US and get paid minimum wage while you are at it?

StarsUponThars

"And so many of the people in the [jail] here were, you know, underprivileged anyway, so this, this is working very well for them." — Barbara Bush

In B4 a conservative pundit tells us how raping children is a "character building exercise".

ttommyunger

Juvenile rape, slave labor; seems to work OK for the Catholic Church. No harm, no foul, right?

WonkCynic

Could have nipped it in the bud a lot sooner by tying the tubes of the mamas that birthed the shitty little criminals. Then nobody'd be in those prisons in the first place. If them bitches and thugs would actually "raise" their spawn instead of simply breeding and dumping their feral monkeys out into the skreet to fend for themselves, they wouldn't become 13 year old criminals to begin with. Then the creepy freaks wouldn't have jobs in private prisons! But they'd still have jobs working for the TSA at aiports! And they'd be able to fondle noncriminal children instead of shitty little thugs. Want a job fondling kiddies? Go to work for King nigga Obarmer and his bull dyke Napolitano. They just loves to see their police state security staff fondling chilrens and old ladies at aiports.